N.Z. PRAISE FOR STRIKERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27073, 23 June 1953, Page 9

N.Z. PRAISE FOR STRIKERS

I LABOUR FEDERATION (New Zealand Press Association j WELLINGTON, June 22. “To the East German workers be- ■ longs the honour of striking a further ■ blow in a country under Soviet dom- , ination, for working class unity and the rights of trade unionists,” says a statement by the national executive committee of the Federation of Labour, issued this afternoon. “In doing so, they have shown once more that trade unionists cannot be permanently supressed by armed force, and have revealed the weakness of the Russian method of subduing other countries. For in spite of years of subjection to propaganda, the German police have refused to shoot down their fellow workers, and the Government has had to call in its own strike breakers. Thus it has destroyed for ever its too-long-maintained pretence to be a Government acting in the interests of the working class. “The ’New Zealand Federation of Labour appreciates, and supports wholeheartedly, the gallant fight of the German workers on behalf of trade unionists throughout the world. We realise they are fighting our battle. Not only are they making it difficult for the Soviet dictatorship to keep the German workers of the east separated from their fellow workers of the west, but they are ridding the international , trade union movement of its last remaining illusions concerning the free-i dom of trade unions to function under < the totalitarian dictatorship. This 11

latest act clearly shows that free trade unions cannot function under a totalitarian regime.

“It may be too much to hope that even the brutal conduct of Soviet dictators in Germany will open the eyes of its supporters in this country, who see in the horrors of Soviet rifle and its suppression of trade unionism something they are pleased to call socialism. but workers will no longer be deceived. We call upon the International Confederation of Free Trade | Unions to take active and effective steps in support of our fellow trade uniohists in East Germany.”